“It sounds like they decided to never come back to the real world.” Julia rolled her eyes.

“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” He was getting excited now, wanting her to see. “It is the real world—for them at least. It’s the world they want to be in, the life they want to live. They’re not holding themselves back because it’s complicated or impractical or not what they were expecting or whatever else people might say. They’re doing it. And Jamie and Laura—they’re doing it, too.”

“You like her? The new girlfriend, I mean,” Julia asked.

“They work together. She’s brilliant, caring, great for Jamie. Plus she wants to settle down, have a family, travel sometimes but have a home in Australia with him. It’s still early, but I’ve never seen him so…happy. Content. They click in this way that’s so obvious. As soon as you see them, you know.”

“So you had dinner with them?” Julia prodded, getting him back to that strange revelation that had changed everything for him. Or not changed it, but brought it into focus so clearly that for the first time, he couldn’t turn away.

“It’s not like I hadn’t seen them together before,” he continued. “But there was this night when I’d been working late. I’m writing a new show. I kind of thought it up when I was with you, and I’ve been trying to get it into production.” He shook his head. He didn’t want to get into that yet. “Anyway, when I met up with them, I was late. Tired. Focused on other things. I got to the bar after them and I was looking around, trying to find where they’d sat, and it was this moment—it’s hard to explain, but there was this moment when I saw them before they saw me, and it was so unscripted, so incredibly intimate. So real. I saw the way they were looking at each other, laughing over their drinks, and she touched his arm and I—”

Blake broke off, looking away. He felt his voice catching. It had been ridiculous even then. What he’d seen hadn’t been significant. It was what couples did when they were together, in their own little bubble even when they were out in the world.

But it was exactly that normalcy that got to him. How comfortable and happy they were. How they’d found each other at last. He’d walked up to them and sat down and ordered a beer and they were glad to see him; it wasn’t like he’d interrupted. But even when they were talking and laughing, he kept thinking about the way Jamie and Laura looked at each other when they thought no one was looking. When there was no one else in their world.

It wasn’t just that he wanted that—to love someone, and be loved in return. It was that in that instant somehow it all slammed into him. That he’d had that—once, briefly—and it wasn’t with Kelley. It wasn’t with any other ex.

It was with Julia, in Brazil. At dinner with her, walking with her, holding hands with her on the beach. It was trembling in her arms after they’d jumped off a cliff and let themselves soar. It was early in the morning when she rolled over, half asleep, and curled her body against his. That wasn’t a time-out from the rest of his life. That was his life. That was what he’d shared with her.

He tried to explain all of this, but he wasn’t sure she understood. It was so clear in his mind and so convoluted when it came out in words.

“You want what Jamie has,” Julia finally said.

“No.” Blake shook his head. “I want what I had but was too wrapped up in myself and my plans to see.”

Julia looked at him intently. “What is it that you had?”

“I spent a week in Brazil falling in love with you, Julia. It took me five months to fully accept that that isn’t changing, and that nothing I feel for you is going away. That may be five months too long,” he said before she could remind him. “It’s five months I wish I hadn’t had to spend, and that you hadn’t had to go through. But that’s how long it took me to be more sure of this than I’ve ever been of anything in my life. That’s how long I could hold out before I knew that if I didn’t come see you, I’d break.”

She took a sharp breath. When she spoke, her voice was pained. “I tried to forget you. I tried to pretend it didn’t mean what it did. Because I thought that for you, it was over. You didn’t call. You barely wrote. I told myself I had to accept that we were done, because there was no other sign that we weren’t.”

Blake pulled up a chair beside her and leaned close, taking her hands in his. “This isn’t the kind of conversation for the phone. This isn’t the kind of thing I could email you and say.” He ran his thumb over her palm, wondering how such a simple touch could do so much to him. “You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to love me back. But I had to tell you anyway. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t get the chance to look you in the eyes and say I’m sorry.”

He looked at her and watched her scan him, trying to read something there. He let himself face her, open, his thumb gently circling the center of her palm. He didn’t know where this was going, but he had to wait and see.

“I’ve missed you,” she finally said, when he thought he couldn’t take her silence anymore. “I thought, after so much time passed, that you were gone.”

Mentally he kicked himself. How could he have let her wait all that time, thinking things were over for them? How could he have made her think her love wasn’t the most important part of his world?

“I had a lot of time to think while I was traveling on my own,” he said, hoping she would understand. “The whole time I kept convincing myself that I’d come home and dive back into my real life and, I don’t know, snap out of it or something. Like you were someone I could move on from.” He shook his head, laughing at the memories because otherwise he would cringe.

He told her about the blurry two weeks in Santiago before saying good-bye to a heartsick Jamie. He’d wanted to believe it was worth it to be there for his friend…and yet afterward, it seemed he was always moving, always trying to outrun his thoughts. If he could keep on the road ahead of his memories of the dark-haired girl with her captivating eyes, who did things that scared her and laughed at her fear, then maybe he’d be able to forget.

But he couldn’t. South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe… He went bungee jumping off the world’s highest jump in South Africa to prove to himself that he could, that he didn’t need anyone with him to do it. But while the adrenaline rush was there, the thrill wasn’t. It wasn’t as fun when he didn’t have anyone to laugh with about hollering all the way down.

At Victoria Falls it was like a dam released inside, flooding him with memories. The falls were supposed to be beautiful, but everything in him ached when he stood before the thundering cloud of white spray and wished it would pound him into the rocks, crush him so he didn’t have to feel this way. Julia had said she dreamed of falling, the soaring descent of each drop. But Blake only had eyes for the bottom, where the rocks were steadily pounded down until one day they’d be nothing but dust.

She ran a hand through his hair, pulling a curl behind his ear, and let her fingers linger on his neck. Her touch both melted him and turned him to steel. “I wish you’d told me you felt that way,” she said with a sigh.

“The postcard,” he reminded her.

“I know.”

“It wasn’t much.”

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.” His stomach tensed with regret, until she said, “At least it let me know you weren’t gone.”

“I think some part of me hoped you’d come after me. Tell me I was wrong. Make me see the light. That sort of thing.”

“I was stunned,” Julia admitted. “It was like when you said you weren’t coming to Rio. I thought we were doing one thing, we’d talked about doing one thing, I thought everything was fine. And then—”

“And then I messed it up doing something else instead.” Blake finished the thought.